Tennis Shoe Cake (Nike Max Global Court Shoe)

My 2nd sneaker....what fun!  This was for my Father-in-Law and the 3rd tennis themed cake I've created for him.  I already have an idea for what I want to make him next year too =)

So here are some of the photo's on how I created a replica of the Nike Max Air Global Court Shoe as seen here:

Carved cake

Crumb Coated in IMBC

The entire shoe is carved out of cake.  A Banana Cake crumb coated in Italian Meringue Buttercream (IMBC) and decorated over with Marshmallow Fondant (MMF).

Here are step-by-step photo's of the 1st sneaker cake I did 2 months ago:  Running Sneaker Shoe Cake

I basically followed the same steps as I did on the Running Sneaker Cake and worked on a well chilled cake removing it out of the fridge a couple hundred times to measure and fit each piece of the shoe together - keeping the cake cold also helps with keeping the IMBC firm and easier to work with.  It's a long and tedious process assembling the shoe section by section and it felt like I was "sewing" together a real shoe =)

Photo's of the shoe with scaled measurement and cutting out the "Nike" out of black MMF

Just getting started is always a challenge...what to do 1st and where to place that very first piece so all the other pieces miraculously fall into place is challenging.  I think the best part to start on is the very front toe area of the shoe and then move up to the middle with the shoes tongue.  Once that gets pieced together, I assembled the sides followed by the details along the very bottom of the shoe and lastly, assembled the back heel and the ankle opening.

Right before adding the shoe laces

Close up o the shoe laces 

Excited to share how I used clear piping gel to create the air pockets  =)
I did a thin layer 1st, let that rest and set overnight then added another layer over that...worked perfectly!

Outer side of the shoe

Inner side of the shoe

To finish it off, I dusted some of the grey areas in pearl dust to give it some shine and look more like the same plastic-like material on the shoe.

The one thing that was out of proportion which I wished I paid more attention to was to make the top "ankle" opening wider...once I was done, I noticed that I was about an inch short and couldn't fix it.  I had my scaled measurements down correctly on paper but in the midst of assembling the cake, I lost track and never went back to remeasure and double check.  You just have to have tiny ankles to get into these shoes - LOL!

Shoe Size:  9.5 US
Shoe Dimensions:  10x5x3 inches

Running Sneaker Shoe Cake

One of my favorite cakes.  I have wanted to make a shoe cake for a while and jumped at the opportunity to create this one for a friend.  The shoe measures at about 11" L x 5" H x 4.5" W and is carved entirely out of cake and covered in MMF.  It's modeled after the New Balance MR817 men's running shoe.

I baked the cake in a 10x10 square pan, cut it in half and stacked it to create a rectangular block to carve the shoe out of.  With the shoes footprint, I used it as a template to carve out the sides of the cake and eyeballed the rest of it.

Covered it over in vanilla buttercream and let it rest overnight at room temperature to set and crust nicely.

I was so nervous with starting on the details and must have spent at least an hour trying to figure out how to piece everything together and where to start.  In the meantime, I put the cake in the fridge for an hour to firm up making it easier to decorate over with the MMF.

Tip:  I find it easier to decorate a cold cake.  You don't have to keep it in the fridge overnight, only an hour is needed to harden the BC (I use a 50/50 mix of Hi Ratio Shortening and Butter - recipe can be found here by Edna at Design Me a Cake).  I then used pieces of parchment paper lightly pressed over each individual section to sketch the shape I needed over it, put the cake back into the fridge to stay chilled, prepped the MMF to the size I sketched onto the parchment paper, removed the cake from the fridge and lay the MMF piece over it to double check the fit, removed the MMF if needed to trim it some more (as long as the BC is cold hard, no dents or smudges will be left behind), then once you have the perfectly sized piece, place and smooth the MMF into place.  Repeat a couple dozen times =)

Once I got the first couple of pieces on there,  the shoe took shape and everything else came together slowly and perfectly.

Total time spent on carving and decorating it...12 hours (not counting the baking, making the MMF, and covering the board) but well worth every minute of it!

For the fabric/mesh print on the shoe, I used a piece of a plastic/silicone drawer liner that had the perfect pattern on it as an impression mat - thank goodness!  I spent a couple days trying to figure out how I was going to recreate the mesh pattern.  I used the same mesh pattern on the name, "Bino!".  The entire shoe is put together using 4 colors of MMF:  White, light grey, dark grey, and orange.  The light grey panels were dusted in white pearl dust to look shiny and "reflective".  The stitches were made with a sewing stitching wheel.  I also used the stitching wheel along the "50th".  A piece of tulle was used to make the fabric print on the orange part along the inside of the shoe.  For the shoe laces, I used a veining tool to score the various thread marks on it - I love bringing out all those little details =)

The cake board was covered to look like a track field floor.  I used a dish cloth as an impression mat against the board to create the little bumps that you find on a track floor.  I was going to dust it over with some brown petal dust to add some scuff marks but it looked a bit more like dirt and opted to not do it - although you can see my sample patch in the photo above).

I just wanted to slip my foot into it and go for a run.  Can't wait to tackle another sneaker cake again - I really enjoyed creating this one!